


Hell is empty

by Minos_forlorn



Series: Though we grit our teeth [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anger Management, Angst, Gen, Reiner is a good kid, being 13 is already bad enough without the child soldier thing, that awful feeling of wanting to go home but you are home, this is just annie going through it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28228662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minos_forlorn/pseuds/Minos_forlorn
Summary: If Reiner, Bertholdt and Annie decided to return to Marley 2 years into the Paradis mission.Focus on Annie as she tries to deal with her situation.
Series: Though we grit our teeth [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2067876
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Hell is empty

Reiner does all the talking. 

The soldiers at the dock just nod and wait for them to board, though Annie overhears them talking later about losing bets regarding dead kids. The three of them stand on the deck in silence as they watch Paradis disappear from view. The brief sense of relief that came from leaving the damn island has now been replaced by a looming fear of what may await them back in Marley. Bertholdt’s shaking hands clutch the railing tightly, but Reiner stands straight with his arms crossed. He and Annie fought for some time about what they should do, but she managed to convince him in the end that they had wasted enough time. She knows deep down that he’s right – the amount of information they have managed to gather does not even remotely compensate for losing the Jaw. She is aware that, even though Reiner has agreed to take the full blame, there is a chance all three of them get purged. Still, she’s willing to take her chances.

They arrive in Liberio at dawn. There is no crowd to welcome them; no one knows they’re back yet, except Magath. Reiner goes on to tell him everything, with Bertholdt chiming in every now and then to try and shoulder some blame. Annie stays quiet, eyes fixed on the floor. There is an awful period of silence once they finish. When Annie finally looks up at Magath, she is unable to read his face.

They are told to go home and report to the headquarters first thing tomorrow, simple as that. Annie is informed that she and her father have been relocated to the internment zone here in Liberio. She finds the house buried deep in the grey walls of the city, and her heart aches for the grass and trees and quiet surrounding the old one. Her father throws his arms around her and weeps. “It’s finally over,” he keeps repeating as she presses herself close to him, and she finds herself unable to laugh or cry. All she can feel is an awful sense of dread in her stomach that comes from knowing this is only the beginning.

It works out as she expected. 

Reiner will be giving up his titan, as he’s been deemed unfit to continue being a Warrior. Annie and Bertholdt are to keep serving their nation for now. That’s all Magath tells the two of them before they’re dismissed. Outside, Bertholdt presses his back to the wall, covers his face with his hands and breaks down. Annie reminds herself that this is not her problem.

She reminds herself again as she opens the door of her and Pieck’s room. There’s no sign of Pieck and judging by the layer of dust on her desk, it doesn’t look like she spends much time here. Annie sits on the bed and stares at the floor. She did it, she got home.

Now what?

Assuming they let her and Bertholdt live, ten more years of war. Ten more years of this miserable city and people she’d rather not have to look at ever again. Two days ago, they were sitting outside their hut on Paradis. It already doesn’t feel real. There’s a turmoil inside her that she cannot make sense of. It’s that same feeling she would get when she was little, when they were made to run all those training courses in the rain and the dark, when she first came to Liberio all alone to secure her spot in the program. It’s that awful feeling of wanting to go home. But she is home. So why...

She pulls off the armband and holds it in her shaking hands. She doesn’t want to be here. She can’t run. There is no turning back from this. 

She doesn’t think, her body moves on its own, she’s not sure if she wants to scream or cry. She kicks the chair over. Why her? Why Marcel, Reiner, why anyone? A pillow is sent flying across the room. Why is the world such a miserable piece of crap? Her knuckles flare up in pain. She shouldn’t be here. She never had a say in any of this. 

Why couldn’t her father have come to his  senses years ago? 

When the ringing in her ears finally stops, she finds herself on the floor with her back against her bed. She registers suddenly a hand on her shoulder and starts. 

“Easy,” a tired voice says. “I’m in no shape to fight you.”

Annie’s heart pounds. “Don’t touch me,” she manages.

Pieck draws her hand back and moves away slightly as she waits for Annie to get her breathing under control. 

“I heard you were back.”

Annie doesn’t feel like commenting on that.

Pieck glances around at the chaotic state of the room, eyes landing on the shattered remains of a chair. “ So, what happened here?”

Pieck’s the same as ever in masking her concern for others, gathered from careful observations, with practiced pretence. It’s all the same noise to Annie’s ears. 

“I’ll clean it up.”

She feels Pieck’s soft gaze on her for a bit, but she doesn’t press on, and instead moves to stand shakily. “Okay,” she says quietly, moving over to her desk, and then she adds, “If you ever want to talk, I’m here.”

That marks the end of the conversation, and it’s the only one Annie has with any of her colleagues for the next week. She tries to fall back into the routine of training while waiting to get drafted, and she ends up finding a kindred spirit in Galliard, who hides a blinding rage behind a hardened face. Sparring sessions allow them both to blow off steam while keeping interactions to a minimum. Then one afternoon, when they’re wrapping up for the day, Galliard decides to break the silence.

“Hey, why’d you let it get away?”

Annie looks up at him. “What?”

“The titan that ate Marcel. Why did you let it get away?”

_ Why on earth does he need to bring this up now? _ “Didn’t you see through the memories? I couldn’t have taken it on by myself.”

Galliard’s fingernails dig into his palms. “Yeah, I saw. That fucking coward. Why the fuck did they choose him? I-” He stops himself before he says anything out of line. So, he hasn’t seen Marcel’s confession. Annie’s definitely not going to be the one to tell him. He can figure it out for himself, eventually. 

She gets up and takes her leave without any additional words. That’s another person she doesn’t want to look at any time soon added to the list. 

Pieck is still recovering from her last mission, so she mostly spends her time with Zeke or in  their room, either reading or sleeping. She and Annie both manage to peacefully coexist while minding their business, but she turns her head at the door slamming, and Annie’s mind is racing too fast to stop herself from voicing her frustrations.

“If they hadn’t chosen Reiner...” she mutters, sinking down into her chair. “If Marley didn’t-”

A cough from Pieck makes her bite her tongue. She turns her gaze to where Pieck is pointing – the old radio on the shelf – and swears under her breath. Of course, she can’t speak her mind, not even on the rare occasions when she wants to, unless she has a death wish. But when the day comes and she can’t keep quiet any more, she’ll make sure to scream it in their faces.

For now, all she can do is slam a fist onto the desk. She hears a chair creak and some rummaging. Pieck walks over and sets something down in front of her – a pen and a journal. It’s missing half its pages, which seem to have been ripped out, and is opened to a page where at the top, in Pieck’s neat handwriting, it says  _ What then? _

Annie sits there, blinking, as Pieck digs through her skirt’s pockets. She pulls out a matchbox and places that on Annie’s desk too, then gives her a wry smile and gets back to her book. For the longest time, Annie just stares at it. Then finally, she picks up the pen and writes, first the things that have been on her mind all day, then stuff from a week ago, two years ago, things she would never say out loud, ugly distorted letters, pressing the pen so hard it rips through the paper in a few places. In the end, she is left with two ink-coated pages. She stares at them for a few seconds, then hastily tears them out and lights up a match. As she watches the words burn away, she finally manages to take a proper breath.


End file.
